School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to be at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself... I found that I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way things that I had no words for.

In the 'Foreword' of the catalogue for the show at the Anderson Galleries in New York, 1926